Laboratory science
Moving mouse strains without moving mice
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
Peres and Roe show that laboratory mouse strains travel as commodities and sentient bodies; infection, welfare and data-quality concerns are shifting mobility from live mice toward embryos and gametes.
How this study connects
Role on claims
Each row is a claim on a concept or method page where this paper supports, challenges, or qualifies the statement. Roles are hand-checked — not a model guess.
Live mouse-strain transport is being displaced by embryos and gametes for welfare and biosecurity, a contemporary mobility story that sits beside historical vivisection and farm-lab hybrids rather than repeating them.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
For present-day laboratory practice, interviews can be joined to ethnographic observation. Peres and Roe combined two weeks of observation at a UK biobank and a breeding and procurement team with 23 in-depth interviews to show biosecurity, welfare and data-quality values pushing mouse strain transport from live animals toward embryos and gametes.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
Open questions
Tensions this paper is part of
From concept pages' “where studies disagree.” Disagreement means the same question; scope means different assays, populations, or outcomes.
Live mouse-strain transport is being displaced by embryos and gametes for welfare and biosecurity, a contemporary mobility story that sits beside historical vivisection and farm-lab hybrids rather than repeating them.
- Supports · Liddell's farm and experimental neurosis
Study at a glance
- Design
- Qualitative / archival — Two-week ethnography plus supply-chain interviews on laboratory mouse strain mobility
- N
- N=23 · 23 in-depth interviews; ethnography over 2 separate weeks at UK sites
- Population
- UK laboratory animal procurement, biobank, and breeding supply-chain workers
- Outcome
- Shift from live mouse transport toward embryos/gametes under biosecurity and welfare pressures
Structured fields used in claim comparison tables when every cited study has a complete layer.
Inspect source passages
Moving mouse strains without moving mice
These passages occur verbatim in the stored paper text. They support the points listed below; they do not verify every statement in the explanation.
The authors conducted 23 in-depth semi-structured interviews with supply-chain informants.
In addition to the ethnography, 23 in-depth semi-structured interviews were made with key informants in the supply chains of laboratory animals, and various site visits
Ethnography ran over 2 separate weeks at UK sites.
What values found within the animal research industry is shaping this contemporary ethico-onto-epistemological entanglement of laboratory animal strain mobility? This work draws on longitudinal ethnographic research over 2 separate weeks, one with a UK research institution with a biobank, and one with a UK team of people involved in the breeding and procurement of animals for research
Key findings
Global repositories such as Jackson Laboratory and EMMA make strain movement normal. A journey threatens consistency. Values of biosecurity, sentient welfare and reliable knowledge assemble so that live transport is increasingly replaced by non-sentient germinal products and surrogate rederivation.
Methodology
Longitudinal ethnography across two separate weeks (a UK institution with a biobank; a UK breeding/procurement team) plus 23 in-depth interviews with supply-chain informants, framed by animal-mobilities theory and feminist materialism.
Limitations
This is UK procurement ethnography, not a census of all global mouse traffic, nor an animal-welfare RCT of shipping crates. It does not measure infection rates of every journey.
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